For too many years the left has used the charge of racism to put opponents on the defensive and deflect from serious debate on the issues. This practice also gets used across the spectrum of demagoguery. Are you against laws that lead to grammar school children being taught about gay marriage or religious adoption agencies being forced to close because they won't place children with gay couples? You're homophobic. Are you against laws that support federally funded abortions for 13 year old girls without parental notification? Sexist. Suggest that a presidential candidate who happens to be black with no meaningful life experience or any demonstration of leadership ability might be right for the job because he's inexperienced and unqualified? Racist. You get the idea.
The left also extends these lazy straw man arguments to other various movements in our history. Establishing the 40 hour work week makes the unions infallible, while the civil rights movement makes any racial grandstanding (or anything remotely close to it) also beyond question. To some degree the right has been guilty of this as well with the "Besides slavery, fascism and communism war never solved anything" argument to justify military actions. I remember when a past job had me listening to Sean Hannity on my ride home he seemed to lead this charge with this straw man. And no, I am not arguing that the statement about what war solved is incorrect nor am I making light of the sacrifices everyone made to achieve victory, but there are times when talking or at least the threat of war is enough. A good example would be with what Dubya accomplished in getting cooperation from Pakistan and Libya in the early days of the War on Terror.
But back to the point at hand, why do people on the left rely on such heavy demagoguery, whether as simple as labeling any dissenting opinion as extremist up to the outright intellectual dishonesty that was just outlined? And why the bizarre title for this blog post? The answer is simple. When a debate with any leftist causes them to say "Racist!" what they are really trying to say is "I have very strong views on this subject, and when you present me with facts that contradict my beliefs it hurts my feelings." This was why throughout the 2008 presidential campaign rather than question the paper thin resume, questionable friendships, lack of legislative record or overall lack of any substantive reason to vote for their teenage puppy love crush it was easier for leftists to simply throw out charges of racism and force the adults in the room to the defensive rather than debate the substance of their chosen messiah.
The perfect example of this came with the passage of Obamacare and the stunt pulled by the Congressional Black Caucus. To quickly recap, after the passage of the bill the Democrats needed something to divert the country from the legislative date-rape that had just occurred. If that analogy seems over the top how many times and ways did the American people scream "No!" and "Stop!" while the Democrats bent us over and shoved this law up into us. And then afterward Obama had the nerve and gall to crow, "They should be thanking me!" coming off like he was asking, "was it good for you?" But I digress. The Democrats couldn't have the focus be on how they used every disgusting legislative trick in the book to run roughshod over the minority party and the wishes of the American people, whether it was the Louisiana Purchase or the Cornhusker Kickback. So they needed a diversion to dominate the headlines and the Congressional Black Caucus provided the means to do it.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
